International Dialogues: Putting Poetry in Translation on the Map

Panel from Newcastle Poetry Festival, featuring : Fiona Sampson, Jen Calleja, Sasha Dugdale, Sophie O’Neill and Neil Astley

Author: The Poettrio Experiment

An AHRC funded investigation into poetry translation trios led by Francis Jones, Bill Herbert and Fiona Sampson with Rebecca May Johnson & Sergio Lobejón Santos View all posts by The Poettrio Experiment

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WHAT IS A POETTRIO?

A ‘Poettrio’ is collaborative process between:

a poet who has written a source text
a language advisor who is an expert in the source and target languages
a poet who writes in the target language.

In our research we are working with Dutch and English poets who have been widely published, and language advisors who are experienced translators.

The poets are not experts in each others’ languages, though, the impact of English as a global ‘lingua franca’ means that the Dutch poets have (at least) conversational English.

The trio work together (in person) to translate source poems, with language advisor facilitating communication between the poets and assisting with language comprehension and choices.

The trio draw on a printed ‘interlinear’ text which is a line-for-line literal translation (as far as that is possible), giving explanations of culture-specific content if necessary. The interlinears are produced in advance of the trio session by language advisors.

OUR RESEARCH

We filmed and recorded two weeks of trio translation workshops from English to Dutch (in Rotterdam) and Dutch to English (in Newcastle).

Using qualitative and quantitive methods we are investigating how trios translate in a workshop context, how the different roles function and how creative processes take place in trios.

We are aiming to build a rich ethnographic picture of how poet-advisor-poet workshops function.

We are also looking at how trios translate compared to solo poetry translators.

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Author: The Poettrio Experiment

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